Standard: UR Riddleform

It’s Tuesday O’Clock! Time for a deck tech!

Hello and welcome to the brave new world that is Standard without Temur Energy or Ramunap Red! Now that these two dominant forces in the meta are gone, we can go back to brewing fun budget decks that actually have a chance to compete. The deck I am going to show you today is one that has been fringe in Standard for quite a while but has a chance to compete now that the top two have been brought back down to Earth. That deck is, of course, UR Riddleform.

UR Riddleform is a deck that has been around for quite a while. The first iteration of this deck appeared right after the card Riddleform was released 6 months ago in Hour of Devastation block. The deck was simple. Play a lot of non-creature spells, and play a lot of creatures that benefit from non-creature spells. The deck showed some promise, but couldn’t face the juggernauts of the meta at the time such as Mono-black zombies, Ramunap Red, and G/B Energy. Hopes were high for it after rotation, but because of it’s lousy matchup with Temur, it saw no play.

However, Temur is gone now, and with that comes the return of Tempo! Tempo, for those of you who don’t know, is a strategy in which you stick an evasive threat on the board, such as a flyer, and disrupt your opponent just long enough to secure the victory. Tempo is a very fun and challenging style of deck that will reward smart and decisive gameplay. Landing an early threat is important in this deck, and in UR Riddleform, the threats that we like to use are Enigma Drake, Riddleform, Cryptic Serpent, and Soul-Scar Mage.

Sticking one of these creatures in the first few turns of the game is key to our game plan. It’s fine to control the opponent and keep them from doing anything, but without any pressure from our creatures, we will eventually run out of cards to deal with their threats. Tempo is the strange mix between an aggro deck, and a control deck, and makes for some very entertaining and close games. Learning the balance between when to be the aggressor and when to be the controller is a very important lesson to learn while playing this style of deck.

When playing this deck, one of the first things to keep in mind is how you use your removal spells. One of the key strengths of a card such as Lightning Strike is that it can either kill a pesky creature or kill your opponent when nothing else can. Carefully managing your removal so that you save your Lightning Strikes for as long as possible is key to finishing off games. While other removal such as Unsummon may only be a temporary solution to your opponents threat, it always pays off to keep Lightning Strike for as long as possible.

Another nice thing to note about this deck is how much card draw is available in the deck. With 16 or more cards in the deck that say “draw a card” you are bound to see a lot of your deck in any given game. This gives the deck a great amount of consistency and allows the deck to pull out many games that it otherwise shouldn’t. And all of this juicy card draw only further serves our purpose of filling our graveyard with spells for our Drakes and Serpents.

And the best part about UR Riddleform is that the core of the deck is super cheap! All of the major cards for UR Riddleform will cost you less than 20 bucks! (Only 3 Tix online as well!) Upgrades to the deck are easy to add but aren’t necessary to just enjoy the deck. UR Riddleform is a powerful and efficient deck that has the potential to compete. So go ahead and give Tempo a shot at your next FNM!